


The Sweetest Girl

by lellabeth



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Author has no shame, Bruce Feels, Daddy Kink, F/M, not sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2015-03-22
Packaged: 2018-03-19 03:59:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3595494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lellabeth/pseuds/lellabeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Call me Daddy,” he’d said, mouth buried in the vulnerable curve of Darcy’s neck. “Please.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sweetest Girl

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dixiedolittle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dixiedolittle/gifts).



Three words. Just those three, and he’s breathing faster than he does right before he transitions into Hulk (because he can say that now, can admit to it, thanks to a girl with red lipstick and the biggest heart he’s ever known). He purses his lips but it’s too late, the words are an oil-spill in the water of this fragile bond between them, and he is horrified. Is this how it feels to dig into the deepest parts of yourself and get your hands tangled in thorned vines? He has always been exposed, but he didn’t realize until he tasted pleading on his tongue that he’d kept this underbelly locked behind a steel armour.

Darcy is motionless beneath him, more still than he’s ever seen her. The room is silent. The half-burnt candles are flickering, like that shadow is trying to extinguish their light. His words echo in his ears. He wasn’t sure who’d frozen first. And despite that, despite the shame and humiliation and fear, he is desperately, achingly hard.

“Call me Daddy,” he’d said, mouth buried in the vulnerable curve of Darcy’s neck. “Please.”

***

He always knew no one would understand. Bruce can see where the disgust comes from - to want to submit to someone like that, give over all your power and be fully in their care, it’s at least understandable. There are plenty of overwhelmed people out there who crave that kind of release.

But to want what he wants, to be the one that solicits it, that turns people’s stomachs.

Bruce is no different.

Hulk has torn people into shreds for things that keep Bruce awake at night, and he has battled with the coursing need inside himself for years because the thought of putting it into words makes him want to rip his own voicebox out. He is a master of self-control, knows how to live his life feeling debased and slightly off-keel, and he has always reasoned that feeling that another part of him is not his own is better than exposing his other dark secret to the world.

But Darcy, she’s never judged him. She has always been unafraid and so vibrant it sometimes hurts him to look at her. Her hands touch him without hesitation, without thought, and every time it feels like the pieces of him that were broken are stitching themselves back together. Darcy sees good in him. She’s the miracle he used to pray for, the one who can see the man beyond the monster.

Except now, he’s shown her too much, and she’s seen that Hulk isn’t really the monster at all.

Bruce is.

***

“Where did that come from?” Darcy says, voice carefully even.

Bruce feels like he’s drowning. “Can you-- please can we forget it? I’m sorry, Darcy, I’m so sorry. I understand if you don’t want to see me but please, I’ll never say it again, I’ll-”

Darcy runs her hand along his back and every muscle in his body trembles. She shushes him softly, pressing her cheek against his.

“How long?” she asks.

His heart is breaking because he can’t lie but the truth is so ugly his mouth hurts to speak it. “Forever, it feels like,” he says, and he laughs except nothing is funny and he can feel tears in his eyes.

“And you’ve never told anyone?”

“No one to tell.” Until you, he thinks but doesn’t say. Until you and now I’ve screwed up the only good thing in my life, ever.

Darcy sighs. He feels her breath against his cheek and tries to commit the shape of her body to memory, something to keep him warm when everything else is endlessly cold. “I need time, Bruce.”

He moves away from her to the side of the bed.

“It’s not-- I’m not scared. I don’t think you’re a pervert. But you hid this from me and that hurts. I trusted you.”

“I’ll call you soon,” Darcy says quietly, her voice like a gift in the space between them. “I still love you. Don’t forget that.”

He waits until he hears the door to his apartment shut before he curls into a ball.

***

It takes less than a day for Darcy to turn up on his doorstep. She steps up to him as soon as he opens the door, running a thumb across the purple under his eye. “You didn’t sleep at all, did you?”

He shakes his head.

Her arms are gentle when they wrap around him, her face burrowing into the gap between his head and his shoulder. “You should have told me. I can’t help wondering if you’ve just been pretending this whole time.”

He immediately protests, but she just squeezes him tight and shushes him. “I know you love me, Bruce. I think I knew before you did. But I get the feeling this isn’t just a random kink for you, not based on your reaction last night. I think this is something that runs much deeper, something you need, and it hurts me to think you’d keep that from me.”

“Ashamed,” he rasps, and the sting of his chest underlines it.

“I understand. That’s why I’m here. I shouldn’t have left.”

Bruce says nothing, too tired to contradict her. He melts into her body, lets her hold him up for a minute.

“I did some research,” Darcy says, and he’s confused by the non-sequitur until his brain finally switches on and everything inside him starts to tingle.

“Yeah?”

“We have a lot of talking to do. A lot. But I promise you, I’m not running.”

Bruce squeezes his eyes shut and kisses her hair, wondering how the hell he ever got so lucky.

***

They really do talk a lot. They talk through everything - when it started (sometime in his 20s), how he feels about it (ashamed is not a strong enough adjective), what it means to him (someone to protect, someone to look after. Someone to care for). And through it all, Darcy holds his hands and rubs her soft thumb across his scarred knuckles.

“You want to look after me?”

Bruce swallows. “I don’t think you realize how special you are, Darcy. You take no shit from anyone, even when it’s a risk to speak up, and I’m so proud of you for it. I love that about you. I love that you’re independent and strong. I love that you’re fearless. But I know that sometimes, you don’t feel like being those things. Sometimes you’re scared, you feel too small and the world feels too big, you feel lost. And I want to be there for you when you feel like that. I want you to give all that fear and worry over to me, trust me to take care of it. I want you to let me look after you. I want to make you feel safe. I want you to feel cherished and like you are the most important thing in the whole cosmos.”

“I think some people would argue with you there,” Darcy says, looking down at her lap.

“To me, that’s what you’ve always been.”

Darcy looks up at him then, her cheeks pink and her eyes shining. She stares at him for long minutes, so long that he begins to fidget, and then she takes a deep breath.

“I want that too.”

Bruce’s heart is pounding. “Yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” he says, and he kisses her just once, just soft. “Okay.”

***

They have sex just the same as they always have, except now Darcy understands why Bruce feels the need to be so achingly gentle with her. Darcy does even more research (apparently there are whole tumblrs dedicated to it, but Bruce is happy sticking to reblogs of physics and Hulk fan art). His place within the Avengers and working for Tony is secure, as is Darcy's job as Coulson's assistant. They still kiss as often as they can, Darcy still kicks the world's ass at every opportunity, and Bruce is still wondering how he ever got so lucky.

Until one day, everything changes.

Darcy comes home in tears, her shoulders slumped and her arms wrapped around herself. Bruce's need to soothe is just as fierce as Hulk's need to protect, and he's almost frantic as he asks her what's wrong.

"I'm so fucking sick of those girls in HR," Darcy says. The way her voice shakes makes Bruce's chest tight. "Every time I go down there, I feel like there are a whole trail of whispers following me. Then today, one of them make a remark about how lucky I was to know all the male Avengers so well and all the others laughed. And I know that type of behaviour. I know why they do it and normally I shrug it off, but today..." She wipes a tear from her cheek. "Today I don't feel like taking on the whole world."

Bruce hugs her tight. It's rare that Darcy is anything less than fully composed, always ready with snark and sarcasm and a wry smile. But some days, when the leers and the snide comments get too much, she'll become sad and withdrawn. It's like all that vivid, bright light is just gone, sucked away by reality, and Bruce hates it.

He kisses her hair. "I love you. You are smart and competent and worthy, Darcy. You deserve that job. And you don't need to take on the whole world, or at least not on your own. One of the benefits of being my girl," he says, lips tilted.

"Your girl?"

"As long as you'll have me."

Darcy leans into his body, bringing her mouth up to his ear. "Am I your good girl?" she says, and Bruce loses control of himself.

"Yes, baby, yes. My good girl, Darcy."

He tugs on the bottom of her top, just gently, raising it when she lifts her arms. Her bra is orange with purple polka dots today. It makes him smile. Darcy makes him smile.

She also makes his cock hard.

He's kissing her, hungry, open-mouthed, taking all she has to give and asking for more. He runs his hands across the landscape of her torso, carresses the dip of her waist and the flare of her hips. She is so beautiful, so gorgeous, and he lets his fingers tell that to her skin. Darcy tugs him toward the bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed as she undresses.

"Such a good girl," Bruce says, more groan than words. "I'm going to look after you, you know? I'll make you feel so good."

And he does, with his fingers and then his mouth and then his cock, and through it all he tells her how lovely she is, how precious. He lets himself say all the things he usually keeps inside for fear of overwhelming her, but Darcy just shakes all around him and graps his skin with her fingernails.

"You are everything I ever wanted but never dreamed I could have," he tells her, kissing a line across the hollow of her collarbone. "I adore you. I couldn't love you more. I love how you let me look after you, let me give you this. I love that you give everything up to me. I love that you trust me. I love that you know I'll get you there. I love you, beautiful girl."

As Darcy comes, it's with a high-pitched Daddy on her lips, and Bruce is lost to the feel of her body and the sound of her voice wrapped around that word. His orgasm is blinding, numbing, every star in the sky and every colour in the light spectrum and he is spiralling out with only Darcy's hands to anchor him.

When he comes down, minutes or hours later, Darcy is beneath him, flushed and soft-eyed.

He kisses every bit of her cheeks that he can reach. "You're so precious, love. My sweet girl."

Darcy just ducks her head, almost shy. "You're embarrassing me, Daddy."

When he laughs, it's with his heart thudding in his chest and the certainty that this is the happiest he's ever been.

And with Darcy, who has a smile that can light the whole sky just for him - with her as his girl, life can only get better.

 


End file.
